Part 17

"How much loftier than all the mountains of my own clime is that which I see towering in the distance towards the land of the warm breezes!"

"That mountain is indeed very lofty," answered the dark Genius.

"I have a noble river, with a flowery bank rising above it, and I have a level lake, but thou hast not given me a mountain, to whose cool and refreshing breezes I may retire, when the fervid and scorching suns of summer invade the lowlands. I would--thou wilt deem me greedy as the hawk or the heron--I would have some such spot, whose breezes, when they kindly dispense health, nerve the soul to great actions, and within whose wild and inaccessible fastnesses, which, ever since Time was, have been the keepers of the free, the weak may find a resting-place, and the wearied by oppression a refuge."

"Take thou the mountain, and name what else thou wilt have."

"Only a few more rivers and a few more vales, which thou canst easily spare, and another mountain for a further refuge, and some more lakes to breed more wild-fowl in, and a forest or two well stocked with deer, and a part of the Great Lake to put my whales in--nothing more, except it be another vale, and another mountain, and another river, and a piece more of the sea."

The dark Genius of the land smiled at the narrow wishes of her younger sister, and replied, that she could spare them all. So the younger sister appropriated to herself the highest mountains, and the most pleasant vales, and the broadest lakes, and the most rapid rivers, and a large piece of the sea to put whales in, and some forests well stocked with deer, and said, "she had taken so little it was scarcely worth thanking for."

Then the dreamer saw in his sleep that, at her bidding, the strange beasts which came in the cloud issued forth to take possession. How their eyes gloated upon the fair gifts which had been made them by the kind spirit of the land! And how grateful they appeared to be, and how exceedingly kind and affectionate they were to the poor Indians! They stroked their heads gently with one hand, while with the other they released them from their oppressive burdens--their beaver skins and their maize--indeed they were too kind. Then to gratify them still further, they produced a burning water, which they distributed among them, assuring them of its power to create pleasing images in the mind, and to make bright visions dance before the eyes of those who drank it. The Indians drank as they were bidden, and realised the predicted effects. What a wonderful medicine was the strong water! Under its potent influence, the mirror of the soul became enlarged, and a thousand images, till then unseen, floated before the mental eye. Then might a man receive certain intimations of the object he should choose as his protecting spirit, and astonish his brothers by a medicine of strange proportions and great power. And secrets of the land of souls--the way to pass the "narrow bridge over the fearful river," and how to stay the anger of the dog that guards it at the point where the Huron passes--how to tread the sharp and steep rock upon which the Chippewa finds entrance to his land of rest--all this, and much more, to be attained by no other means, was learned from the strong waters given to the Abnakis by the strange spirit. And Wangewaha, the dreamer, woke from his sleep, rubbed his eyes, and indulged in deep thought of what the dream might portend.

Again he sunk to sleep, and again he dreamed. Still his dream was of strange creatures, aliens to his land, and usurpers of the rights of its native sons. But they had multiplied till their numbers were as the sands upon the sea shore. He stood in imagination upon a lofty hill, and cast his eyes upon the broad lands beneath him. How changed! The forests had been swept away, the land was cleared of its mossy old oaks, and lofty pines, and cedars, but, where they once raised their leafy heads to the winds of heaven, now rose cabins, white as the folds of a cloud, and glittering in the sun like a sheet of ice in a winter's day. The broad and rapid river, as well as the waters of the Great Lake, was marked in streaks of white foam by the many clouds traversing it, like that he had seen in his first dream. The lofty mountains were seamed like the breast of a tattooed warrior(2), by the roads which the strangers had made over it. The vales waved with the yellow wheat, and, herds of tame bisons lay resting on the grassy knolls, or stood grouped at the outlets of the fields, which the industrious strangers had girded in with fences of rock.

And what had become of the former inhabitants of the soil? where were the dusky men who met the strange creatures upon the shore, and bade them welcome, and gave them the fat things of the sea and the land for their subsistence, and warm furs to protect them from the searching winds of the Snow-Moon, and taught them how to follow the trail of forest animals, and to thread, unerringly, their way for many successive nights through the lonely wilderness, by the flow of streams and the course of fishes, and the light of the Hunter's Star, and the moss upon the oaks, and the flight of birds? Listen, and I will tell you.

He sees upon the edge of a stream, overgrown with a thick grove of alders and luxuriant vines, an Indian man and woman. The woman held in her arms a dying child--at the feet of the man, lay a lean and famished dog. Deep thought was in the eye of the one, and absorbing grief in that of the other. Now the hunter cast his eyes into the depths of the river in anxious search for the signs of the approach of the finny people; now he laid his ear to the earth after the manner of his race, when they would detect the sound of footsteps.

"Didst thou see aught in the current, which thine eye is searching?" asked the wife tremulously, fixing her bright black eye, moistened with a tear, upon her hungry infant.

"I saw nothing in the current," answered the hunter. "The net of the stranger hath swept from the flood that which was in part the food of our tribes, when he first became acquainted with these shores. The barbed spear no more brings up the sleeping conger; the Indian throws his hook into the once populous stream, but it returns with the bait untouched."

"Did thy quick ear catch the sound of aught in the mazes of the wood?" asked the fond mother, and her tears fell thick on the cheeks of her little babe.

"My ear caught no sound in the mazes of the wood," answered the hunter. "How should it? The stranger hath left nothing save the mouse, and the mole, and few of them. He has swept away the beloved retreats of the bounding beauty of the forest, the nimble deer, and none are left in the glades, where once they were thicker than the stars. The bear, and the wolf, and the panther, love not their crafty brother, and have gone yet deeper into the forest. The wild duck feeds now in the deep waters only, the mother teaches her brood that death lurks behind the wood-skirted shore."

"Then must this little child--thine and mine--our first-born, die of hunger. Yet bethink thee. I see among yonder lofty trees a cabin, the whiteness of which tells us that one of the despoilers of our joys hath there taken up his abode."

"Wouldst thou have the son of Alknomook--the son of the rightful lord--himself the rightful lord of these wide regions--beg bread from the stranger?"

"Not to save thy life or mine would I ask it, but what would I not do to save the life of this beautiful babe, which the Great Spirit granted to my prayers, when for sixty moons I had lived in thy cabin a disgraced woman(3)."

"Not therefore should the soul of an Indian warrior bend to a master. I cannot beg."

"What was the dream which thou hadst in the last Worm-Moon?"

"Thou sayest well--it was of vengeance had by means of the boy. The son of Alknomook will humble his pride--he will wipe off the war paint, which he laid as deep on his face as the memory of his wrongs weigh on his heart, and he will supplicate the stranger to give him food for his little one."

Still the sleeping chief continued to take note of the things which occurred. He beheld the enfeebled and emaciated Indians at the dwelling of the proud stranger. The stranger sat at the door of his lofty cabin, and thus he addressed the friendless outcasts:

"Why have you dared to trespass on my soil, to bruise my pretty flowers with your rude feet, and to frighten my flocks and herds with your shrill halloos?"

The son of the forest was about to reply fiercely, when his ear caught the plaintive moan of his famished child, and he controlled the tempest of wrath which was rising in his bosom.

"Thine eyes are the eyes of an owl by daylight," replied he calmly. "They have seen a thing which has not happened. The son of Alknomook did not bruise the flowers of the pale face, nor frighten his flocks and herds by his shrill halloos. Wilt thou give me a morsel of food for my famished child?"

"Begone, thou Indian dog!" said the proud and cruel man. "Thou shalt have no food here."

"But my child will die of hunger."

"If thy child die of hunger, there will be a red skin less. Back to thy woods, and herd with wolves and panthers, thy fit associates."

The soul of the stern but generous warrior filled with ire and the spirit of vengeance, as he poured out his feelings in the emphatic language of his people. "Not so spoke the Abnakis to the weary, naked, and hungry, men who came to their shores, and besought them to grant them shelter," said he. "We gave them the food from our own mouths, and took the skins which fenced our wigwams to protect them from the winds of the cold moon." Nor did he cease speaking till he had denounced upon the pale faces the wrath of the Great Spirit for the injuries they had inflicted upon the Indians.